The Rise of the European Emperor

Wiltz strictly followed the "Guidelines for the Treatment of Laterite Nickel Ore" written by Marin to obtain large quantities of nickel oxide and sulfuric acid.

After nickel oxide is produced, it will be shipped to Cape Breton Island for further refining into nickel metal. Then, when smelting stainless steel, it is added to ferrochromium, and it is remelted and smelted in a reverberatory furnace to further remove impurities.

Of course, nickel metal can also be melted and mixed with copper to become cupronickel that pretends to be silver. For Marin, who is good at counterfeiting, cupronickel is definitely the top grade for casting counterfeit coins...

As for sulfuric acid, its uses are also very wide. First, it can be used to make copper sulfate and zinc sulfate—both simple, readily available pesticides that can greatly reduce pest and disease control in crops. Although it is not as toxic and effective as the chemical pesticides of later generations, it is not as harmful as those of the later generations of highly toxic pesticides such as cyanide.

For Marin, copper sulphate, zinc sulphate, lime sulphur and botanical pesticides (mainly pyrethrum solutions) are readily available pesticides. Also, because copper sulfate and zinc sulfate are more productive than pyrethrum, they can become mainstream pesticides.

In addition, sulfuric acid can also be used to make nitric acid, promote the development of chemical science, and even allow Marin to come up with nitrocellulose (smokeless powder).

There is another use that Marin accidentally thought of - that is, it can be used to make optical glass...

Quartz sand, the raw material for producing glass, often contains various impurities. Among them, the impurity that most affects the performance of glass is iron ion.

In the presence of iron ions, the glass will turn green, affecting the transmittance and reducing the quality of the glass. The Venetians figured out a way to neutralize iron ions with pyrolusite, reducing the green color of the glass. However, the glass treated in this way has a good light transmittance in the morning. But over time, the glass will turn purple. Moreover, this physical "decolorization" method will reduce the "transmittance" of light, so it is not suitable for optical glass.

Marin had seen such a method of making optical glass in the last world - that is, pickling quartz sand...

The so-called pickling quartz sand is to use sulfuric acid or hydrochloric acid, or even use aqua regia, to soak the quartz sand powder to remove the impurities in the quartz sand.

Quartz sand is insoluble in acid, but iron ions, including some other metal ions, are basically soluble in acid. After pickling, the iron ions are dissolved and dissolved in the acid solution. In this way, the content of iron ions in the quartz sand is suppressed to a very low level.

Moreover, other miscellaneous metal ions were also washed away by acid. The glass made from this pure quartz sand has high purity and strong light transmission.

Such optical glass,

What is it used for? Nonsense, of course it's used to make telescopes...

Now, the binoculars used by Marin's men, the army model, can only see things within 5 kilometers, and the farther, it is directly blurred. The sea is also green glass, which greatly affects the effect of the telescope.

Washing powdered quartz sand with sulfuric acid will reduce the iron ion content in the quartz sand to the greatest extent possible. Of course, the main point is that the quartz sand needs to be ground very finely, so that the iron ions wrapped in the quartz sand can fully avoid the fate of being pickled. Of course, even if it is very finely ground, it is difficult to avoid the situation that very little iron ions remain. After all, even if you grind hard with a steel grinder, you won't be able to grind quartz to its atomic state. But as long as it is ground into powder and pickled again, it is more than enough to make advanced optical telescopes.

The telescope lens manufactured by this method will have the strongest light transmittance, which is comparable to the so-called "Russian military telescope" in later generations. In this way, it is more convenient for spies and scouts to obtain enemy intelligence. In naval battles, commanders can more easily determine the number of artillery pieces on enemy ships, and even estimate the relevant caliber...

In short, with sulfuric acid, quartz sand can be acid washed, the best optical glass and the best telescope can be produced, and the reconnaissance ability of Marin's scouts can be enhanced...

...

Therefore, Marin develops nickel mines in Cuba, and the harvest is huge. Not to mention the nickel produced, it can be used to smelt stainless steel, it can also be used to make cupronickel, and it can be used to counterfeit silver to make fake silver coins. If the European silver coin has a high silver content and is relatively soft, that's all. The cupronickel is too hard and can be distinguished. However, at this time, the European "silver coins" have high hardness due to the high copper content. Therefore, counterfeit coins made of cupronickel are actually more difficult to distinguish...

Cuba's laterite nickel ore reserves are huge, which are in the millions of tons. Marin is ready to flood Europe with fake silver coins made of cupronickel...

The by-product sulfuric acid brought by the processing of laterite nickel ore is also widely used. Whether it is optical glass or pesticides such as copper sulfate and zinc sulfate, they are all very practical things for Marin.

You ask me how copper sulfate and zinc sulfate are produced? Copper is indeed insoluble in dilute sulfuric acid, but, which idiot told you to use copper and sulfuric acid to produce copper sulfate? Is it okay to use high-purity copper ore? Whether it is copper oxide or other compounds of copper, it is soluble in sulfuric acid... As for zinc sulfate, it is even simpler. The crude zinc ingots scraped from the wall of the cooling tube of the smelting furnace are directly thrown into the sulfuric acid...

Then, the crystals of copper sulfate and zinc sulfate are purified, put into oil paper bags and sealed, and then they can be shipped to various places as pesticides. When you need to use it, unpack it directly, dissolve it in water in proportion, and spray it directly with a sprayer...

How is the sprayer made? Is this a problem? In minutes, Malin can copy an artificial sprayer that later generations carried on the back of the farmer's uncle, and it was professionally used for pesticides... After all, later generations of Malin's family used a bunch of discarded artificial sprayers. When Marin was a child in his previous life, he often dismantled and played with discarded agricultural sprayers, so he should not be too familiar with its structure.

...

Wiltz found the laterite nickel ore. Although it was a great achievement, it can only be regarded as the first stage of the task...

In the second stage, Wiltz needs to look for the chromite ore with a legendary reserve of one million tons in the mountains near Moa...

However, this stage is a bit more difficult. Because, Marin can't tell what chromite looks like. Unlike laterite nickel ore, the color is red. Just calcin it and see if there is a SO2 taste. Some are nickel sulfide, and what has no taste is red iron ore, simple and crude...

Because I don't know what chromite looks like, Welts needs to find this ore by himself. Anyway, what kind of ores are used to smelt and try. If iron is smelted, you have to try it to see if it is easy to rust. If it is not easy to rust in a high temperature water vapor environment, it is likely to be chromite...

Therefore, finding chromite is much more difficult than finding laterite nickel. Not only do you need to find iron ore that you don't know what it looks like, but also after smelting the ore, you need to test it with high temperature water vapor for a long time to finally judge whether it is chromite or not.

And if chromite is found, then stainless steel can come out smoothly...

To this end, Marin gave a high reward - discovering that nickel ore is just an ordinary non-hereditary jazz. And the discovery of chromite, directly upgraded to hereditary knight, became a noble family... If the contribution is huge, the baron can expect...

Therefore, after finishing the mining and processing of nickel ore, Wiltz once again led a large group of people, under the escort of a large number of local people hired with salt and food, to go into the mountains to look for chromite ore...